


Taking Stock

by TheJSFFenix



Category: Girls und Panzer
Genre: (as canon as it can get if we still don't know the Das Finale ending), Established Relationship, F/F, Fade to Black, Fluff, Happy Ending, Kissing, Post-Canon, Romance, Yuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:07:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27042472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheJSFFenix/pseuds/TheJSFFenix
Summary: They were supposed to take stock of some tank equipment. But there were many more things stored away than just that.
Relationships: Itsumi Erika/Nishizumi Maho
Kudos: 5





	Taking Stock

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to Qafian Sage, ktbl, StrikingLightning from AO3 and Just Darkjazz from FFN for helping me with this story!

It was late afternoon in the Armored Corps Training Centre in Münster, the orange sun slowly setting over its many tank hangars. Heated up during the day, their concrete and metal parts were now cooling down rapidly, making the air inside warm, but not suffocatingly so.

Two girls, Maho Nishizumi and Erika Itsumi were currently busy taking stock of ammunition, lubricants, spare parts and other such items neatly piled up next to a row of Leopard 2A6 tanks belonging to their platoon.

As a Lieutenant, Maho was actually expected to do this by herself, but since her unofficial second-in-command eagerly volunteered to come with her, she could only agree.

"DM43... AP...F...S?" she tried to read, bent over one of the ammunition crates. "Ugh, just write this down as 'Panzergranate 43', Erika." she let out a defeated sigh. "Erika?" she repeated, realizing she stopped hearing any acknowledgements from her sergeant a good while ago.

Lifting up her gaze she noticed the other girl was just staring at her, pen in her hand completely still and the page in the notebook a clean slate.

"Yes, yes, I got it all down on the previous page." she nodded energetically, unwrapping herself from her thoughts at once.

Such slip-ups seemed very unlike Erika she knew, but she didn't say a word, rationalizing it away as just tiredness and getting back to work. She was now done with ammunition, and was about to move onto the stack of the lubricants, when the girl spoke up again.

"We should check out the tanks too."

At first she found the suggestion odd. Wasn't that a job for a maintenance company? However, seeing the other girl confidently walk up to one of the Leopards she thought that maybe there really was something they were supposed to check for at the end of the day. She still felt quite rusty with tankery, and struggled to remember certain things about it.

Erika climbed the hull of the tank and sat down on the rear part of it. Its bulky turret was currently turned sideways to allow for easier access to each part of the armor in case of repairs or cleaning, leaving plenty of space there.

"Come on, I'll help you up." she extended her hand for Maho to grab, her exposed legs dangling off the edge of the hull.

Both of them were quite surprised when faithful replicas of their Kuromorimine uniforms were handed out to them immediately upon their arrival, black jackets and dark red shirts underneath, paired with skirts of the same colour.

They were told it would look good in the upcoming recruitment campaign and press photos, so they would wear them for the training period. At first it was awkward, maybe a little bit embarrassing, walking around in something like this when everybody else around them wore a real Bundeswehr uniform, but that feeling was soon replaced by a sense of nostalgic pride instead. They were sensha-dos once again, best of the best, and that was enough to put a spring into their step.

The older Nishizumi grabbed her hand and using one of the track wheels as a stepping stone also climbed onto the armor.

They sat like that for a while, sergeant kicking her feet, perhaps waiting for the lieutenant to also take the lead on that one.

_"Right, I outrank her, so that would be lo-"_

"Actually, I just wanted to sit down with you for a while." said Erika, interrupting her thought as if she read it. "I've been missing you, you know?"

"So you came all the way to Europe just for me?" She would be surprised, shocked even, if that turned out to be the case.

"No! No, of course not!" Erika denied instantly. "I mean, you got me into sensha-do, but this one doesn't have anything to do with you." she stressed, now looking the other way.

"Well, I just thought that..." began Maho.

"...That we're still a couple, right?" finished the other girl. "Are we?" she looked at her again.

"Yes?" she replied, not really understanding what her partner was playing at. "At least I think so." She added after a while, sounding much more confident this time around.

While it was true that their relationship cooled down somewhat after Maho left to study in Germany, her feelings for Erika didn't change one bit. She hoped that the sentiment also remained the same on the other end, but as they were both here for only a bit longer than a week at this point and their schedules haven't exactly been empty, there wasn't really a time for such conversations.

"I think so too." a delicate smile could be seen on Erika's lips, her left hand moving the bangs of dark brown hair out of the face of the other girl.

Maho's heart skipped a beat as the gentle touch shifted from her hair to her cheek, then moved to cup her face and turn her head. Their eyes met for a moment.

It was only then that she saw the fire flashing in her eyes, the girl's expression momentarily twisted with anger, and the palm of the other hand flying from her left. The force of the slap whipped her head to the side and everything went black for a second.

"So why the hell didn't you tell me you were going to volunteer?!" Erika could finally let her emotions spill out after over two weeks of bottling them up. She felt hurt and betrayed, finding out about it all because of a complete accident, a few words carelessly thrown in a casual conversation by a third party, rather than if she heard it straight from the girl in question.

"I... just wanted you to be safe." she stammered out surprised, touching the red handprint and feeling the burning pain spreading through her face. She genuinely thought that what she did was the best for Erika.

"So it's okay for you to risk your neck, but not for me?" asked her partner, unable to grasp the logic behind that argument.

"You wouldn't understand Erika. You're not a Nishizumi like me" Maho tried to explain.

"Of course, how an Itsumi like me could ever hope to understand the great Nishizumis, right?" interjected Erika, the sarcasm in her voice sharp as if she hoped to decapitate someone with it.

She then sighed angrily and got up, wanting to jump off on the other side of the tank.

"No, Erika, wait!" Maho also scrambled to her feet, catching her wrist at the last possible moment and holding onto it as if she clung to her dear life. "Please, it wasn't what I meant. Please listen."

Erika stopped dead in her tracks. Maho would never beg anyone. The Nishizumi heiress just wasn't that kind of a person. Now she felt bad, putting her on the spot and forcing her to swallow her pride. But how readily the girl did it only assured her that what she said had to be true, and that she did indeed care.

"Well then? What is it?" She asked in a calm tone after they both sat back down on the rear of the tank, now facing each other and away from the edge.

"Nishizumis never missed out on any war." began the other girl. "Can you imagine what people would say if we sat this one out? They'd think that three generations of peace made us go soft." saying that she looked down, balling her hands into fists. To even contemplate such a thing, to think on the possibility of failure felt shameful to her.

"It was me or my mother." she resumed eventually. "If I hadn't volunteered myself I know she would, just like Shimada's mother did. You don't have anything to prove Erika. No tradition or honor to defend. You could have just stayed home and-"

Erika rolled her eyes, and slid closer to her side.

"And what if I don't want to be safe?" she interrupted, wrapping her arms around the girl.

"W-what?" asked Maho, thinking she must have misheard her. But as her partner pulled her into a tight hug it was like an assurance that her ears were not deceiving her.

"I don't want to be safe." repeated Erika. "I want to be with you, and that's very different." she stated. "It was you who made Kuromorimine what it is. You gave us all you had Maho, now let us give at least some of that back."

"Wait... what do you mean 'us'?" asked the dark haired girl, now completely confused.

"That's right." nodded her partner, smiling slyly. "Some girls from our class already know everything and are getting their travel permits. Rest of the school has to wait for the official recruitment program to open, but they'll be coming too. What, did you really think it would be just me?" she chuckled, seeing her partner completely taken aback by what she just heard. "Before this month is over there'll be a whole company of sensha-dos here!"

Of course, the thought of facing all of this on her own was indeed making Maho somewhat anxious, and she did wish that her old crew was here with her, but it wouldn't ever cross her mind to ask anything of Erika, let alone of the entire school!

"Why?" she stammered out. "This isn't your war, why are you so-"

"Stop talking like that or I'll slap some more sense into you" interrupted her partner half jokingly. "We're not letting you go alone like back on 63rd, you hear me?"

The memories of their last tournament together came flooding into her mind. She remembered how she risked everything, thinking that facing her little sister was something she had to do herself, contrary to the doctrine of close cooperation between all elements that she had always preached. She gambled and lost, even though the reinforcements were so close, Erika among them.

The girl was right. Even the legendary Maho Nishizumi could sometimes use some help, and admitting that didn't make her any less of who she was

"Thanks, Erika." she said quietly after a while, letting herself relax in her partner's embrace.

"Oh stop it Maho. I'm your hyper-competent second-in-command after all, no?" replied Erika, still as arrogant as in her high school days.

Right. How could she ever have thought going to war without her was a good idea?

"By the way…" Maho returned the hug, pulling them towards each other even closer than before.

"Yes?" asked Erika, though looking into her partner's eyes, she could already tell what was about to happen.

"I've missed you too." she admitted, though still somewhat restrainedly, and with her usual emotionless expression.

Nishizumis spoke through actions, rather than empty words. She kissed her, and the girl returned the kiss, the two of them cooperating as flawlessly as during their battles. For the first time in two years their lips met again, each girl desperate to once more taste the other, to feel the same spark they both felt tens of times before. Within a minute they found themselves fully laying on the tank, their hands shivering with excitement as they removed the uniforms from one another. They saw themselves through webcams, they heard each other talk on the phone, but nothing could replace being able to hold each other, to feel the warmth of their body on one's own, or experience a heart beginning to race when the other person was once again right here.

They've met through sensha-do, and in the heat of battle they discovered just how well they go together. They had their first time on Maho's Tiger after it carried them through a tough match, now they were about to do it again on a Leopard, before heading out for the next war. It seemed like tanks, combat and being together all had their names on it.

And neither of them would have it any other way.


End file.
